Damn, that was awesome! I love this show.And WTH?? Did I see something like "prisoner transport" on that landing ship??Is there another space station still up there???What a cliffhanger! How can I wait that long for a continuation now ... arghhh ;-)And I have to say that I'm very glad that the Night Blood worked and Clarke survived.The show wouldn't be the same without her ...Well, again, I have to let that settle a bit, what a great show, which always is keeping meon the edge of my seat!

All season long the characters on The 100 have been attempting to find a way to survive the oncoming radiation death wave. And in Wednesday’s finale, they did — well, most of them.(Spoilers ahead!)In “Praimfaya,” Octavia and a group of Grounders, including the 13th clan, found shelter in a bunker underneath Polis. They closed the doors while Clarke, Raven, Bellamy, Monty, Harper, Murphy, Emori, and Echo were stranded on Becca’s island. But Clarke had a plan up her sleeve: going back to space. The plan was mostly successful, but Clarke had to sacrifice herself in order for her friends to make it there.Or at least she thought she was sacrificing herself. In reality, she survived thanks to her nightblood — something we learned in the last five minutes of the episode when it flashed ahead six years and seven months. We also learned the bunker is still sealed shut from the capitol’s rubble, Clarke found a young nightblood named Madi, and a new group has returned from space. (Read the full finale recap here.)We caught up with show creator Jason Rothenberg to learn what everything in those final minutes means and what we can expect from season 5.ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Clarke has always been the person who made big decisions, but she never had to sacrifice herself. It felt so significant that she finally did. JASON ROTHENBERG: You’re right — in the past, she’s always been forced into these awful choices of who she’s going to sacrifice. And in this story, that choice was to sacrifice herself for her friends so they could continue. [Now] in that moment, she didn’t know she was going to make it. She didn’t know that her nightblood would save her. And that’s why she says, “My fight is over” as she’s about to start climbing.Bellamy also had to make what he thought was a pretty big sacrifice.It’s very similar to the choice that Clarke had to make in the season 1 finale when she had to close the [dropship] door on Bellamy and Finn, who were still outside fighting the Grounders. Here, Bellamy had to choose to leave Clarke behind and close the door, literally. Which he did while making good on what Clarke was saying: “You’re going to have to use your head.” In this case, he’s sacrificing her.

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So let’s talk about Clarke and Bellamy together — they both had opportunities to really shine as leaders in this finale.No question, it is the most important relationship in the show in terms of these two leaders working together and figuring out how to survive together. One’s strength is the other’s weakness and vice versa. This finale was about Clarke believing she was going to die because of Abby’s premonition and trying to tell this guy, “You’re going to have to figure out how to do this without me. You’re going to have to use your head and your heart, not just your heart.” Bellamy has always been such an emotional, impulsive person. He reacts emotionally to things, which is important sometimes, but it’s also [important to use your head]. And ultimately that’s what he does this episode.So what is in store for these two relationship-wise?First of all, Bellamy and Clarke have always been at the center of this show. It has always been the story of — on some level — Clarke and her relationship to Bellamy. And whether they were going to survive or not depended on how well those two human beings worked together — whether romantic or otherwise. I try not to take a position on it. I think it’s ultimately kind of a Rorschach test for people: any interpretation is right, there’s no right and wrong. Until we commit canonically to it, you’re free to interpret it any way you want.Speaking of what’s happening in the future, let’s talk about the final moments of the episode when we jumped ahead six years and seven days. Are we going to see flashbacks in season 5? Will we learn what happened in the bunker?Time jumps are designed to be just that — to jump over some time. But I take your point. The time that we’re skipping is highly dramatic. [They spent] six years under the ground being forced to figure out how to survive. They realize that they’re stuck under there as Clarke tells us at the end of the episode. That’s going to be a story that we want to see. When we see Octavia at the beginning of season 5, it’s a pretty big “WTF” moment, and we’re going to want to know how she got there, so ultimately we will flash back and tell some story in the bunker and likewise on the ring.So we’ll get space flashbacks, too?When we go into the ring in season 5 and we see how Bellamy and Raven and Monty and the others have made it, we’ll be very surprised by what we find up there. Ultimately, we’ll want to tell some of the story of how it happened. And flashbacks are part of the DNA of the show, too, so it’s not like we’re like, “Oh, we’re going to do flashbacks for the first time.” We always do flashbacks!Now, as for what we did see — what can you tell us about Madi? The mother-daughter vibe that you pick up on in that scene is real. (It’s not her biological child; I think it’s fairly obvious that the kid is too old for that.) But she is a nightblood. Clarke was alone until she found Madi. When we find them together in [episode] 413, they have been together already for a number of years and are relying on each other and surviving together. That’s an incredibly powerful bond, and it will be a really important relationship for Clarke in season 5.How will that affect her other relationships? Imagine if what’s right for Madi is not what’s right for Bellamy and/or Octavia and her people — what does Clarke do? Her “people” has now expanded to include just this one person, like a parent really. When you have kids, that’s what happens: Your priorities shift instantly. I think it will be really awesome to see how Clarke has changed. She and Abby will have a new understanding of each other based on it. It’s some new terrain for Clarke for sure.Speaking of new things … what can you say about this prisoner transport coming in? It will for sure be a threat. What I like about it is it’s full circle, really. The 100, when they came down, were prisoners. They were the prisoners coming down to an earth that they thought was uninhabited. And they realized that they weren’t alone. Now these prisoners are coming down and we will tell the story of how much or little they know about what they’re coming down to.And what they’re coming down to is Clarke! It’s a real perspective shift. Suddenly, Clarke is the Grounder and they are the 100, only they are a different breed of criminal.

Jason Rothenberg gives THR some insight into what the future looks like for Clarke Griffin (Eliza Taylor) and the others.

[Warning: This story contains major spoilers through the season four finale of The CW's The 100, "Praimfaya."]

"It is happening again."

Those four words were liberally applied in the lead-up to last week's Twin Peaksrevival, but they actually hold new meaning in the very different context of a very different show: The 100, the sci-fi series about disparate groups of men, women and children fighting with each other and against each other to survive in a virtually uninhabitable Earth.

The world of The 100, already fraught with global and personal disaster, became an even harsher realm in this week's season four finale, "Praimfaya," thanks to the arrival of the so-called Death Wave, the nuclear disaster making its swift march across the world all year long. The Wave finally arrived in the finale, and the question of how our heroes would survive has finally been answered — and it involves a veritable reboot of the series.

In the finale, Clarke Griffin (Eliza Taylor) and her friends embarked on an improbable mission to blast off into space and return to the Ark, humanity's longtime home that was abandoned all the way back in season one. The mission was a success, but only after Clarke sacrificed her own place with the team in order to physically operate a satellite on Earth's surface. The brutal decision meant Clarke was left on Earth without shelter from the nuclear storm. One of the last images we see is the Wave passing through the land, as Clarke stumbles into a facility, covered in irradiated boils...

...and then the series jumps six years and seven days forward in time. Clarke is fine, thanks to becoming a Nightblood earlier in the season, allowing her body to reject radiation. She has a new haircut and a new friend named Maddy, several years her junior. What's more, with the bunker filled with 1,200 Skaikru and Grounders completely inaccessible thanks to the Wave's destructive path, and with the rest of her friends hopefully still alive somewhere in the stars, Clarke and Maddy just might be the last two people on Earth.

That is, until a spacecraft belonging to an as-yet unknown party called the Eligius Corporation descends from the skies, promising all-new characters and conflicts for the season to come. Showrunner Jason Rothenberg spoke with The Hollywood Reporter about how the time jump and the new circumstances on the board serve as something of a reboot for The 100, what to expect from season five, and more.

In the past, season finales of The 100 have often given an indication of where you plan to take the show in the following year. With that said, what did you want to set up with the season four finale's time jump?

We wanted to a. reveal that Clarke survived and that her Nightblood kicked in, and she's now essentially — or so we think for the first couple of minutes of that final pop-out at the end — the lone survivor on the planet. Her friends... we know they made it to space, but she doesn't know whether or not they made it. We also know there's a group of 1200 led by Octavia (Marie Avgeropoulos) in the bunker, but Clarke is the lone survivor on the planet. And then we reveal she's found Maddy, this Nightblood child. Clearly, there's a maternal connection between the two of them when we reveal her in the end. That's something that's very exciting for me to think about, how season five will unfold with that emotional and really powerful story. They have been together for years when we first see them. She's been with Maddy alone for a number of years; longer than she was ever on the ground with anybody. So it's going to be a very powerful bond and a huge part of season five.

I'm preemptively shaking my fist at you, because clearly you're going to kill this character and break all of our hearts.

(Laughs.) Well, you know, we're not averse to killing children. That sounds terrible. (Laughs.) We've done it before! But I'm not saying that's where this story is going.

Fair enough.

Regardless, it was important to me to also bring in the new threat as well. That prison ship that appears at the end clearly is going to be a problem moving forward that we'll deal with in season five. In some ways, think about it as coming full circle. The kids in the pilot of The 100 were criminals coming to the ground and realizing they weren't alone. Now, these new theoretically prisoners — if that's what they are — when they land, will come out and find a world that perhaps they think is not habitated and populated, and will find out that there's somebody there in Clarke.

The spaceship boats two new names: Eligius Corporation and Gagarin Prison Transport. How much time should fans spend in the off-season reading into concepts like Saint Eligius, patron saint of goldsmiths and coin collectors, and Yuri Gagarin, the first man in outer space?

The fans will definitely read into things, and should. These names are not randomly selected. How about we leave it at that.

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Six years and seven days have passed. Do you have designs on flashbacks to fill in the gaps of what we've missed with the characters who have been off-screen for so much time?

We're in the room breaking season five now. We're working on episode two already. Yes, flashbacks are definitely part of it. It's a color in our crayon box that we go to in our show. There's certainly a lot of intense story to be told about a group of 1200 Grounders and Skaikru living together in that bunker situation. Obviously, as Clarke says in the end of the finale, they tried to dig them out, but there was too much rubble from the destruction of Polis. So they're stuck under there. It's six years later, and they're still not out. That's going to be a very intense story. I would like to see some of that. You can imagine flashbacks, for sure. Likewise, on the Ring, there's six years of story that we will have missed. Some of it is probably pretty intense and interesting. We'll definitely consider seeing some of that in flashback, too. But really, the point of a time jump is to see how things have changed, and to try to fill in the blanks hopefully in a way that makes sense going forward, not going backward.

In sending so many characters back up to space, and you also have this new threat descending from the sky, do you feel that season five is almost a return to the roots of The 100, where that hard sci-fi element is back in place?

Yeah, absolutely. For sure, there's a big space component. That's hard sci-fi. It's a full circle, like I said before, with the prisoners on the ground, only now they are hardened criminals who were sent on this mining mission, perhaps. Now we, Clarke in particular, are the Grounders. It's a full circle, shoe-is-on-the-other-foot perspective switch. Now our characters who are in space are going to have to figure out how to get down and all of which is great sci-fi.

How much longer do you see The 100's story going for? Do you still have years of story to tell, or is season five moving us into endgame territory?

Unfortunately, those decisions are above my pay grade, obviously. I love these characters and I love this world, and certainly this reboot of a [six-]year time jump provides us with a springboard that could go forward for season upon season. There's no reason why it should have to end. If it does have to end, the finale — which is weird to talk about, the finale of season five! But it's epic, and it could perhaps serve as [an ending]. I hope it doesn't. Hopefully they'll give some indication as we're working through as to whether or not it is, so I can give the coming finale the weight I think it would deserve if it was a series finale. Unfortunately, as you know, so many of these things are business decisions that are made financially and not creatively.

Are you prepared for it?

Am I prepared for it? I mean, emotionally, I would not be prepared for it! (Laughs) I love this show. I love these characters. I want them all to continue. But I have had the endgame in mind. Every finale could have kind of served as a series finale, if you look back on them. We just keep getting to tell the story. Hopefully we'll get to tell part six as well. But that's going to be up to the fans, for sure. That's up to them, how much they want it, and how badly they want it.The 100